My last therapy session was hard. But in many ways I’m glad it’s finally finished. I found it extremely hard to have a long drawn out ending. Since my first break I had stopped sharing anything deeper with her. I couldn’t go there knowing it was ending soon anyway. What was the point. I know I withdrew almost back to how I was when I started.

I knew when it finally ended I didn’t want to have any regrets. With things left unsaid or things I shouldn’t have said. Even though I think therapy ended at a bad time and my t didn’t handle it very well, I still like her. I didn’t want to burn my bridges. I know I’m being wishy-washy, I just can’t help it. That’s how I am for better or worse. Having said that there is a lot of anger swirling around inside. I just suck at expressing it. I needed to say some things to her. I’m conflicted by the feelings that swirl around inside. I like her, I’m angry at her, she helped me, she’s no different from the rest of the people who have left me, therapy helped me, therapy screwed me over, and so on it goes.

The way I handled the last session was so I could find some sort of closure. The only way I could be in this session was diplomatic. The diplomat, that’s me. Good things came out of therapy. I learned a lot about myself. The why’s of why I’m the way I am.

The nice side of me wrote the letter to my t. Everything I wrote was the truth. And I meant everything I wrote. I wanted to tell her my experience of the therapeutic journey and some of her part in it. She did help me, in ways that my last therapist couldn’t.

What I didn’t write in the letter was how the end of therapy and the conflicting messages I was getting; hurt, confused and made me angry. I did tell her verbally, in a diplomatic way, how I didn’t think therapy should be ending. Some of the depth of what I was feeling has only been expressed here. Even if I never expressed it here I would have not said it to my t. I rarely do in real life. My mistrust ended up growing stronger within the relationship in the end. I did allude to this very briefly but in the end I needed my nice side to be the most present. Because that’s how I want to remember it. I needed it to end on a good note after all the badness of the ending. I’m really trying not to throw the baby out with the bath water so to speak.

It sounds like you handled the situation as best as you now how. Even if you’d done everything perfectly, it would still suck. I’m glad you tried to leave without any regrets. Our experiences of ending are very similar in how we tried to handle it, but this is your post and I don’t want to take away from YOUR experience.

If I could offer any advice or suggestions from someone who is a month ahead of you in the experience, is that it is okay to both be angry and diplomatic. To say it was all a waste of time, money, work devalues the work you did. To pretend that it’s all peachy and fine devalues the feelings you have about how you were mistreated.

I think for a lot of us in therapy, it’s black or white, good or bad, etc. Real life isn’t though. It’s mostly grey and this is another example of it.

If you’re able to let both exist at the same time, I think it makes it easier to move on – though ‘moving on’ at this point is something you might not be even considering emotionally. I still carry some of that hurt/anger but I also remind myself of the progress I made so that it doesn’t overpower me.

As the raw emotions subside, it becomes easier to step back from the situation and assess more objectively, for what it was and what it wasn’t, and make it easier for you to choose how to proceed.

It makes sense and thank you for the perspective I really need at this time. I do have a hard time with seeing and living with the grey. In reading this I think part of my problem is not realizing these emotions can exist at the same time. I have a feeling that is part of what I’m feeling confused about. Very conflicting. Feel free to say what you like, it won’t take away from my experience and I find other peoples experiences helpful to help figure out mine. This has been very helpful.

This makes a lot of sense to me maze, and deciding to end on a positive note makes more sense to me now that you’ve explained it than it did before. Being diplomatic can be a really useful skill. Seems natural too that you would be very angry also. I’m impressed by how you’re handling this. take care

I have this need not to leave any loose ends if I can help it. Therapy has really helped me even though I think it ended too soon. And I believe she did the best she could for me. At the same time I think I will need to let my anger have it’s say as well. I just hope I’m handling this in a way that is healthy for me.

It’s been up and down. I feel somewhat lost in not having anyone to talk to. There has been a lot of other things going on in my life at this moment that have been a bit of distraction. Although I’m not sure that helps or hinders the process of ending.